OHI 2023: Summary of results

Summary

This document describes results from the 2023 global OHI assessment. This is mostly an internal document to explore and check results. It also creates the figures used on the website and in other documents.

Setup

Primary dataset

These data are the OHI scores for the eez regions of 220 countries and territories from 2012 to 2023.

Region 0 is the global average scores, which are calculated using an area-weighted average of the region scores (status, likely future state, and score).

OHI scores

Global summary

This section describes global patterns in index and goal scores. The overall global score was 73.46.

Alternative color scale

Average global performance of the 10 goals.

Flower plots for each region can be downloaded from here

Country summary

Country index scores for 2023 Maps describing goal and index scores can be downloaded from here.

Distribution of country index scores. The median index score among countries was 72.27.

The regions with index scores of 80 or greater are:

region_name	Index
Macquarie Island	91.18
Howland Island and Baker Island	89.88
Jarvis Island	89.24
Ile Europa	88.95
Seychelles	86.55
United Arab Emirates	84.73
Mayotte	83.86
Portugal	83.61
Qatar	83.45
Palmyra Atoll	83.28
Oman	83.16
Northern Saint-Martin	82.63
Russia	82.59
New Zealand	82.32
Venezuela	81.66
Greenland	81.66
Madeira	81.43
Prince Edward Islands	81.01
Heard and McDonald Islands	80.73
Iraq	80.24
Ecuador	80.14
Brazil	80.03

The regions with index scores of 60 or less are:

region_name	Index
Tristan da Cunha	59.62
Brunei	59.26
Democratic Republic of the Congo	59.17
Lebanon	58.94
Sri Lanka	58.85
Philippines	58.32
Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul Island	58.00
Falkland Islands	57.59
Syria	56.18
Republique du Congo	55.91
Ivory Coast	54.91
Eritrea	54.81

Country scores across scenario year

Carpet plot figure (download as high resolution png) providing an overview of the scores from the 2023 assessment. Each row represents a region, the main groupings represent goals, and within each goal there are 12 years of data. Black regions indicate no data.

Don’t try too hard to interpret the results for specific countries/goals/years!!

This plot is good for providing a quick overview of:

• What is the range of scores?
• Which goals tend to have high scores across most regions (species, habitat)
• Which goals have a lot of variation across regions (tourism & recreation, lasting special places)
• Which goals are volatile across years (natural products, tourism & recreation)

2023 Data

This interactive table describes the index and goal scores for the regions in 2023 (or, download csv version):

All years data

This interactive table describes the index and goal scores for the regions in all years. This is helpful in investigating a single country by searching the region name.

Change from 2012 to 2023

This interactive table describes the gross change in index and goal scores for the regions between 2012 and 2023. This is helpful in investigating a single country by searching the region name and seeing how much each goal value has changed overall from the first year to the last.

OHI Trends

Trend values are slope estimates from a linear model of scores for each region/goal over the past 12 years. Positive values indicate increasing scores during the past 12 years and negative values indicate decreasing scores.

A color-coded table of trend values for each country is available here (as well as a csv file).

NOTE: Currently, these data include the livelihoods and economies goal but these results should be viewed sceptically because these data were last updated for the 2013 assessment. Many other goals contain components with poor data resolution (i.e., infrequently, or never, measured over time).

Global summary

The following table provides the global scores (eez area weighted average of region scores) for the Index and goals/subgoals for all years.

goal	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
Index	72.15	73.15	73.28	73.29	73.31	73.23	73.17	72.90	72.60	72.44	73.20	73.46
Artisanal opportunities	75.68	76.14	76.30	76.09	75.58	75.10	74.99	74.68	74.85	74.32	76.60	77.18
Species condition (subgoal)	79.67	79.47	79.26	79.07	78.88	78.66	78.47	78.26	78.06	77.86	77.65	77.65
Biodiversity	78.52	78.49	78.06	78.24	77.76	77.37	77.11	76.71	76.37	76.32	76.27	76.35
Habitat (subgoal)	77.37	77.51	76.85	77.41	76.64	76.08	75.75	75.16	74.67	74.79	74.89	75.06
Coastal protection	80.13	82.55	82.61	82.59	82.44	82.23	81.95	81.71	81.75	81.91	82.35	82.78
Carbon storage	81.06	81.06	81.05	81.05	81.04	81.03	81.08	81.12	81.11	81.11	81.10	81.10
Clean water	67.19	67.57	68.37	68.23	68.47	68.79	69.40	69.01	69.34	69.30	69.30	69.98
Fisheries (subgoal)	55.09	55.71	55.82	55.67	55.24	54.84	54.12	54.44	54.59	54.71	55.17	55.11
Food provision	51.22	51.77	51.84	51.66	51.24	50.95	50.07	50.36	50.20	50.11	50.30	50.33
Mariculture (subgoal)	5.74	5.65	5.67	5.71	5.82	5.94	6.05	6.14	6.25	6.40	6.60	6.80
Iconic species (subgoal)	66.54	67.36	67.42	67.80	67.11	67.14	67.67	65.23	63.15	62.76	62.66	62.56
Sense of place	59.88	61.07	61.20	62.19	62.06	62.69	63.88	63.42	62.87	62.90	62.76	62.57
Lasting special places (subgoal)	53.23	54.79	54.99	56.59	57.01	58.23	60.09	61.61	62.59	63.04	62.86	62.58
Natural products	75.96	76.53	77.05	76.84	77.09	76.63	75.76	74.06	74.04	72.68	77.84	78.64
Tourism & recreation	78.69	78.84	78.60	78.22	79.79	79.63	79.42	79.80	76.86	77.14	77.47	77.89

The following is a preliminary analysis of how the global scores changed over time. Global index scores decreased by an average 0.01 points per year, with 98 regions having decreasing trends and 120 having increasing trends.

goal	avg. change per year	P-value	# regions positive trend	# regions negative trend	mean trend	SD trend
Iconic species (subgoal)	-0.51	0.0006	28	187	-0.64	0.52
Habitat (subgoal)	-0.29	0.0000	68	123	-0.35	0.90
Biodiversity	-0.24	0.0000	27	192	-0.32	0.47
Species condition (subgoal)	-0.19	0.0000	14	205	-0.28	0.16
Food provision	-0.16	0.0005	92	121	-0.11	0.78
Tourism & recreation	-0.13	0.1241	99	52	0.21	2.61
Fisheries (subgoal)	-0.07	0.0987	81	131	-0.15	0.67
Natural products	-0.05	0.7637	72	109	-0.16	1.77
Artisanal opportunities	-0.01	0.9199	94	97	0.06	1.44
Carbon storage	0.01	0.0068	42	27	0.01	0.05
Index	0.01	0.6838	119	98	0.04	0.40
Livelihoods	0.03	0.1139	67	63	-0.02	0.39
Coastal protection	0.06	0.3789	44	31	0.02	0.11
Mariculture (subgoal)	0.10	0.0000	48	29	0.14	0.68
Livelihoods & economies	0.15	0.1139	137	39	0.09	0.34
Clean water	0.21	0.0000	150	69	0.33	0.67
Sense of place	0.23	0.0056	90	127	0.22	1.20
Economies	0.27	0.1139	134	16	0.21	0.45
Lasting special places (subgoal)	0.97	0.0000	94	25	1.08	2.34

Country summary

The global average decreased by an average of 0.01 points per year, but there was a good deal of variation in trend among regions and goals.

The following histogram describes the distribution of trend (e.g., change in score per year) in index scores:

The 10 regions with the largest increases in index scores are:

country	trend
Portugal	1.16
Pitcairn	1.15
Jamaica	1.02
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands	0.85
Papua New Guinea	0.81
Qatar	0.79
Haiti	0.78
South Korea	0.75
Clipperton Island	0.68
Saint Lucia	0.67

The 10 regions with the largest decreases in index scores are:

country	trend
Marshall Islands	-0.68
Trinidad and Tobago	-0.70
Poland	-0.74
American Samoa	-0.78
Solomon Islands	-0.82
Republique du Congo	-0.84
Philippines	-0.91
Falkland Islands	-0.92
Sri Lanka	-1.03
Fiji	-1.20

Country change in goal

A bar plot describing change in trend for country and goals:

A closer look at goal scores

This section takes a closer look at the goal/subgoal scores for the 2023 scenario.

Artisanal opportunities

Scores

Top 10 performers

region_name	score
Qatar	100.00
Antigua and Barbuda	100.00
Costa Rica	100.00
Marshall Islands	100.00
Nauru	100.00
Solomon Islands	100.00
Cayman Islands	100.00
Tokelau	99.98
Bangladesh	99.90
Wallis and Futuna	99.21

Bottom 10 performers

region_name	score
Norfolk Island	44.92
Democratic Republic of the Congo	43.11
Gilbert Islands (Kiribati)	42.04
Dominica	37.09
South Africa	35.81
Palau	35.11
American Samoa	30.87
Vanuatu	28.86
Ukraine	28.37
Georgia	25.16

Species condition (subgoal)

Scores

Top 10 performers

region_name	score
Finland	90.55
Estonia	90.11
Poland	90.04
Lithuania	89.80
Latvia	89.66
Sweden	88.37
Jordan	87.73
Djibouti	87.49
Northern Saint-Martin	86.84
Sint Eustatius	86.52

Bottom 10 performers

region_name	score
Greece	63.71
Italy	63.14
Israel	63.06
Syria	62.44
Algeria	61.36
Lebanon	60.41
Malta	60.38
Libya	57.77
Cyprus	57.23
Monaco	55.45

Biodiversity

Scores

Top 10 performers

region_name	score
Sint Eustatius	93.26
Saba	92.77
Sint Maarten	92.56
Oecussi Ambeno	91.87
Heard and McDonald Islands	91.57
Djibouti	90.96
Kerguelen Islands	90.85
Northern Saint-Martin	90.52
Bouvet Island	89.86
Jordan	88.75

Bottom 10 performers

region_name	score
Montenegro	60.76
Lebanon	60.06
Monaco	59.76
Greece	59.44
Republique du Congo	58.82
Ivory Coast	58.32
Faeroe Islands	58.16
Falkland Islands	56.24
Croatia	55.67
Syria	50.32

Habitat (subgoal)

Scores

Top 10 performers

region_name	score
Heard and McDonald Islands	100
Clipperton Island	100
Saba	100
Kerguelen Islands	100
Tuvalu	100
Sint Eustatius	100
Sao Tome and Principe	100
French Polynesia	100
Ascension	100
Wallis and Futuna	100

Bottom 10 performers

region_name	score
Saint Pierre and Miquelon	50.25
Ukraine	50.05
Bulgaria	45.98
Republique du Congo	45.08
Ivory Coast	43.01
Poland	42.88
Croatia	40.56
Faeroe Islands	40.08
Syria	38.20
Falkland Islands	31.46

Coastal protection

Scores

Top 10 performers

region_name	score
Macquarie Island	100
Clipperton Island	100
Saba	100
Azores	100
Bangladesh	100
Tuvalu	100
Sint Eustatius	100
Oecussi Ambeno	100
French Polynesia	100
Wallis and Futuna	100

Bottom 10 performers

region_name	score
Somalia	55.78
Argentina	55.47
British Virgin Islands	54.54
Chile	51.66
Bermuda	51.18
Democratic Republic of the Congo	36.41
Guyana	32.24
Pakistan	23.09
Ivory Coast	18.03
Republique du Congo	10.02

Carbon storage

Scores

Top 10 performers

region_name	score
Ile Europa	100
Mayotte	100
Northern Saint-Martin	100
Saba	100
Bangladesh	100
Tuvalu	100
Sint Eustatius	100
French Polynesia	100
French Guiana	100
Sint Maarten	100

Bottom 10 performers

region_name	score
Montenegro	55.68
Curacao	50.65
Democratic Republic of the Congo	44.61
Republique du Congo	37.13
Latvia	36.60
Morocco	33.23
Poland	30.81
Lithuania	23.45
Lebanon	5.05
Syria	3.36

Clean water

Scores

Top 10 performers

region_name	score
Heard and McDonald Islands	99.25
Bouvet Island	99.25
Jarvis Island	99.23
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands	98.67
Macquarie Island	97.89
Kerguelen Islands	97.51
Howland Island and Baker Island	96.77
Phoenix Islands (Kiribati)	95.94
Palmyra Atoll	93.10
Seychelles	89.92

Bottom 10 performers

region_name	score
India	34.56
Ghana	33.34
Nigeria	31.15
Bangladesh	28.75
Cameroon	28.17
Marshall Islands	23.71
Togo	19.42
Gilbert Islands (Kiribati)	18.88
Nauru	18.65
Benin	15.81

Economies

Scores

Top 10 performers

region_name	score
Mayotte	100
Portugal	100
Oman	100
New Zealand	100
Brazil	100
Panama	100
Uruguay	100
Aruba	100
Australia	100
Azores	100

Bottom 10 performers

region_name	score
Niue	31.73
Guadeloupe and Martinique	30.39
French Guiana	29.78
Guinea Bissau	25.86
Saint Helena	23.14
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	20.76
Equatorial Guinea	18.57
Falkland Islands	16.17
Eritrea	6.68
East Timor	0.05

Livelihoods & economies

Scores

Top 10 performers

region_name	score
Mayotte	100
Oman	100
New Zealand	100
Panama	100
Uruguay	100
Aruba	100
Bangladesh	100
Tuvalu	100
Sao Tome and Principe	100
Tanzania	100

Bottom 10 performers

region_name	score
Cook Islands	44.46
French Guiana	44.01
Philippines	43.94
Saint Helena	40.59
Samoa	39.88
Falkland Islands	36.68
East Timor	27.48
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	25.46
Equatorial Guinea	12.81
Eritrea	3.42

Livelihoods

Scores

Top 10 performers

region_name	score
Seychelles	100
United Arab Emirates	100
Mayotte	100
Oman	100
New Zealand	100
Greenland	100
Iraq	100
Ecuador	100
Panama	100
Chile	100

Bottom 10 performers

region_name	score
Gabon	37.93
Anguilla	35.69
Libya	35.21
Cook Islands	33.98
Benin	33.98
Saint Kitts and Nevis	33.69
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	30.16
Equatorial Guinea	7.05
Samoa	3.34
Eritrea	0.16

Fisheries (subgoal)

Scores

Top 10 performers

region_name	score
Nauru	97.09
Ile Europa	94.98
Juan de Nova Island	94.98
Bassas da India	94.98
Macquarie Island	92.90
Prince Edward Islands	91.66
Palmyra Atoll	90.97
Ile Tromelin	90.95
Turks and Caicos Islands	90.10
Gilbert Islands (Kiribati)	88.62

Bottom 10 performers

region_name	score
Guinea	13.86
Western Sahara	13.13
Albania	12.32
Bulgaria	10.68
Johnston Atoll	10.26
Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul Island	9.95
Pitcairn	9.48
Jan Mayen	9.14
Norfolk Island	8.29
Bouvet Island	7.86

Food provision

Scores

Top 10 performers

region_name	score
Nauru	97.09
Ile Europa	94.98
Juan de Nova Island	94.98
Bassas da India	94.98
Macquarie Island	92.90
Prince Edward Islands	91.66
Palmyra Atoll	90.97
Ile Tromelin	90.95
Turks and Caicos Islands	90.10
Gilbert Islands (Kiribati)	88.61

Bottom 10 performers

region_name	score
Mauritania	14.73
Glorioso Islands	14.28
Guinea	13.86
Western Sahara	13.13
Johnston Atoll	10.26
Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul Island	9.95
Pitcairn	9.48
Jan Mayen	9.14
Norfolk Island	8.29
Bouvet Island	7.86

Mariculture (subgoal)

Scores

Top 10 performers

region_name	score
Finland	88.40
Bosnia and Herzegovina	88.33
Denmark	87.17
Netherlands	87.02
Germany	87.01
Jersey	87.01
Bulgaria	87.01
Guernsey	87.01
South Korea	86.60
Slovenia	84.37

Bottom 10 performers

region_name	score
Sudan	0
Gilbert Islands (Kiribati)	0
Fiji	0
Tristan da Cunha	0
Democratic Republic of the Congo	0
Falkland Islands	0
Syria	0
Republique du Congo	0
Ivory Coast	0
Eritrea	0

Iconic species (subgoal)

Scores

Top 10 performers

region_name	score
Romania	100.00
Ukraine	100.00
Bulgaria	100.00
Finland	93.33
Latvia	92.86
Lithuania	92.86
Poland	92.86
Estonia	92.31
Denmark	87.27
Sweden	87.22

Bottom 10 performers

region_name	score
Bassas da India	50.85
Glorioso Islands	50.85
Ile Tromelin	50.85
Crozet Islands	50.85
Amsterdam Island and Saint Paul Island	50.85
Thailand	50.68
Iran	50.46
Cambodia	49.54
Turkey	47.16
Georgia	39.70

Sense of place

Scores

Top 10 performers

region_name	score
Romania	100.00
Ukraine	100.00
Bulgaria	100.00
Latvia	96.43
Lithuania	96.43
Poland	96.43
Estonia	96.15
Denmark	93.64
Germany	93.45
Bouvet Island	92.14

Bottom 10 performers

region_name	score
Niue	27.06
Syria	26.85
Bahrain	26.82
Turkey	26.76
Yemen	25.83
Sudan	25.74
Tokelau	25.72
Juan de Nova Island	25.43
Bassas da India	25.43
Ile Tromelin	25.43

Lasting special places (subgoal)

Scores

Top 10 performers

region_name	score
Macquarie Island	100
Howland Island and Baker Island	100
Jarvis Island	100
Ile Europa	100
Seychelles	100
Mayotte	100
Portugal	100
Palmyra Atoll	100
Northern Saint-Martin	100
Madeira	100

Bottom 10 performers

region_name	score
Togo	0
Libya	0
Line Islands (Kiribati)	0
Saint Helena	0
Niue	0
Sudan	0
Gilbert Islands (Kiribati)	0
Tristan da Cunha	0
Syria	0
Eritrea	0

Natural products

Scores

Top 10 performers

region_name	score
Northern Saint-Martin	100.00
Greenland	100.00
Panama	100.00
Bahamas	100.00
Jan Mayen	100.00
Faeroe Islands	99.97
Lithuania	99.93
Norway	99.88
Sweden	99.88
Estonia	99.87

Bottom 10 performers

region_name	score
Suriname	48.01
Cape Verde	47.92
Falkland Islands	43.85
Madagascar	41.40
Belgium	40.88
Dominican Republic	38.72
Palau	38.33
Solomon Islands	35.88
New Caledonia	30.80
Fiji	18.59

Tourism & recreation

Scores

Top 10 performers

region_name	score
Seychelles	100
Russia	100
New Zealand	100
Chile	100
Uruguay	100
Australia	100
Tuvalu	100
French Polynesia	100
Germany	100
Tanzania	100

Bottom 10 performers

region_name	score
Thailand	6.74
Philippines	5.88
New Caledonia	5.68
Kuwait	4.92
American Samoa	4.46
Slovenia	4.44
Solomon Islands	3.55
Brunei	2.45
Cayman Islands	1.69
Tonga	1.08

Trends

Annual change in goal/subgoal scores calculated using a linear regression on scores from 2012 to 2023.

Other analyses

Comparing trend and average index scores

To obtain a more complete picture of which regions are doing well and which are doing poorly we compared the average index scores (averaged over 2012 to 2023) and the trends for each region.

Of most concern are regions that have poor scores and declining trends.

The following is an interactive plot (region names are visible when hovering over the points) showing the relationship between average index scores and trend. The horizontal line represents the 0 trend and the vertical line is the average of the average index scores.

Comparing assessment years

The following is a comparison of the global status scores generated for the 2023 scenario by this year’s assessment vs. last year’s assessment.

If the models and source data remain the same, these scores should be exactly the same. Differences indicate changes in methods or source data.

These changes do not reflect changes in actual system health!

long_goal	future	pressures	resilience	score	status	trend
Artisanal opportunities	-0.6308000	0.0226818	-0.0326818	-0.6384500	-0.6473500	0.0001500
Biodiversity	0.0263182	NaN	NaN	0.0134545	0.0000000	0.0006818
Carbon storage	0.0614054	-0.0957838	-0.0261622	0.0309189	0.0000000	0.0014054
Clean water	0.3350909	-0.3124545	-0.0441818	0.2905909	0.2455000	0.0013182
Coastal protection	0.0245192	-0.2788942	-0.0268269	0.0122115	0.0000000	0.0005288
Economies	-0.0004902	0.0107583	-0.0739545	-0.0003922	0.0000000	0.0000000
Fisheries (subgoal)	-1.0480455	0.0675909	0.0020000	-0.9232273	-0.7986364	-0.0063182
Food provision	-1.1200000	NaN	NaN	-0.9440909	-0.7683182	-0.0049091
Habitat (subgoal)	0.0492727	-0.1110000	-0.0359545	0.0245909	0.0000000	0.0012727
Iconic species (subgoal)	2.2065000	-0.0065000	-0.0175455	2.2499545	2.2944091	-0.0020909
Index	3.3931364	NA	NA	3.0185455	NA	NA
Lasting special places (subgoal)	0.6399091	0.0230000	-0.0440000	0.3681818	0.0959545	0.0314545
Livelihoods	-0.0001471	0.0168246	-0.0447273	-0.0001961	0.0000000	0.0000000
Livelihoods & economies	-0.0002941	NaN	NaN	-0.0002941	0.0000000	0.0000000
Mariculture (subgoal)	0.6321762	0.0440909	-0.0441818	0.6956995	0.7592746	0.0225907
Natural products	3.2386096	-0.0634043	0.0406383	2.5985027	1.9577005	0.0408021
Sense of place	1.4233182	NaN	NaN	1.3092273	1.1948636	0.0146818
Species condition (subgoal)	0.0033636	0.0087273	0.0020000	0.0016364	0.0000000	0.0000000
Tourism & recreation	33.7017178	-0.1695909	-0.0441818	30.1320859	26.5618405	0.2503067

Country data

The following interactive plot provides an overview of how the 2023 scenario scores changed between the 2022 and 2023 assessments for all goals and dimensions.